Breaking Ball
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BREAKING BALL An affair to remember and forget BY MICHAEL HARDY ike any long-term relation- ART crowd with a three-run homer to put the Astros ship, my love affair with BY up 4-2 over their old nemesis, the St. Louis the Astros has had its ups Cardinals. With a two-run lead and two outs in and downs over the years, DAN the ninth inning—and the best closer in base- L its moments of ecstasy and PAGE ball, Brad Lidge, on the mound—we’re practi- despair. And, as is often the cally in the World Series already. case in sports, the thrill of The stadium is physically shaking under my victory is only a razor’s edge away from the feet, rocked by over 43,000 screaming, stomp- agony of defeat. ing, clapping fans, when Cardinals first baseman October 17, 2005: It’s Game 5 of the National Albert Pujols steps to the plate with two men on League Championship Series, with the Astros base. The roar only grows louder as Lidge throws just one strike away from earning their first- first one, then two strikes. Every Astros fan ever trip to the World Series. My father, my best knows only too well what happens next: Lidge friend Justin, and I are high up above third base steps to the mound, leans in to take the signal in the nosebleed seats at Minute Maid Park, only from the catcher, straightens up, and delivers a few rows from the back wall. Like everyone the pitch—a hard fastball down the center of the else, we’ve been on our feet since the seventh plate that Pujols easily smashes into deep left inning, when Lance Berkman electrified the field for a three-run homer. The stadium goes H-TOWN DIARY from deafeningly loud to eerily silent in a nanosecond. Baseball postseason record for most innings (18), most players Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS is to Astros fans what Game 6 used by a single team (23), most grand slams (2), and longest of the 1986 World Series is to Red Sox fans or Game 6 of the game time. The following day, baseball writer Rich Lederer 2003 NLCS is for Cubs fans—a traumatic event that binds dubbed it the greatest game ever played, and many of us who us together in collective angst. Even though the Astros went were in attendance are inclined to agree. By the 15th inning, the on that year to win Game 6 in St. Louis, finally punching Astros had used all their pitchers except Roger Clemens, who their ticket to the World Series, the season really ended that was forced to come in as a reliever for only the second time October night with Pujols’s heartbreaker of a home run. No in his career. When the Astros’ rookie second baseman Chris one was very surprised when the Astros lost the World Series Burke hit the game-winning home run in the bottom of the to the White Sox in four straight games. 18th inning, sending the Astros to the NLCS for a rematch with the Cards, the crowd—or what was left of it after six hours— THAT GAME WAS THE HIGH-WATER MARK of my Astros fan- gave him a standing ovation that seemed to last forever. dom. I’ve been following the team for almost a quarter-cen- Every Astros fan in the stadium was thinking the same tury, ever since my father took me to my first game in 1990, thing: this is our year. when I was 6. Back then, of course, the Astros still played in the Astrodome, and visiting that vast colossus of a sta- THEN CAME ALBERT PUJOLS, and it’s all been downhill dium was at least half the fun—picking up our tickets at the from there. The following year, the team declined to renew bunker-like box office outside the stadium, going through Bagwell’s contract, and Clemens and Pettitte filed for free turnstiles past vendors hawking programs, cotton candy, agency. I soon became a free agent myself, leaving Houston team memorabilia. Whenever I had some pocket change, I to attend grad school on the East Coast. By the time I stopped at the team store to buy more baseball cards for my returned to town in 2013, Biggio and Bagwell had retired, the rapidly growing collection. Astros had a new owner, and the team had switched from My dad and I always sat with our scorecards and binoculars the National League to the American. I couldn’t even get the in the center-field bleachers, so far from home plate that the games on TV thanks to now-defunct CSN Houston’s inabil- only players we could see distinctly were the lonely outfield- ers. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise, then, that my favorite player was center-fielder Steve Finley, a tall, lanky fellow who hit well, stole bases, and made spectacular defensive plays that I could watch, even sans binoculars, from my nearby perch. My dad, on the other hand, fancied a player named Danny Darwin, a long-forgotten journeyman pitcher whom he Yes, the team has given me a seemed to like for the sole reason that he shared a surname with Charles Darwin, one of his personal idols. When my lifetime of sports heartache, dad was growing up in Spring Branch, his own father, a stockbroker, had taken him to Colt .45 games at Colt but heartache—always Stadium, the Astrodome’s uncovered, mosquito-plagued predecessor. Third-baseman Bob Aspromonte was one of a hallmark of the Astros my grandfather's clients; for many years my dad kept a yel- lowed old baseball signed by Aspromonte. fan experience—never My regular visits to the Astrodome abruptly ended in 1992 when my family moved to Austin, although we returned to stopped me from loving town every few months to visit my now-widowed grand- mother. On some of these trips we made time for an Astros them in the old days. game, but I could feel my interest beginning to wane. I kept building my baseball card collection, but I also began collecting basketball and football cards (though I proved inept at actually playing any of these sports.) My allegiance to Houston was undiminished—I watched every Oilers game on TV, and when the Rockets won their back-to-back championships in 1994 ity to secure a carriage agreement with DirecTV. and 1995, they briefly displaced the Astros in my affections. The team certainly looked like it did in the ’90s—they even It wasn’t until I moved back to Houston for college in returned to their classic orange-and-navy uniforms—but 2003 that my flagging interest in the Astros began to revive. that just seemed to emphasize my estrangement from them. I couldn’t have picked a better time—the team would shortly In long-term relationships that begin to founder, it’s cus- lure Roger Clemens out of a brief retirement to join his home- tomary to ask whether one or both parties has changed. town squad, with Clemens bringing along his friend and for- I wonder: have the Astros changed, or have I? Am I just a mer Yankees teammate Andy Pettitte. When you added in bandwagon fan? Yes, the team has given me a lifetime of the team’s third ace, Roy Oswalt, suddenly the ’Stros had the sports heartache, but heartache—always a hallmark of the best bullpen in baseball. They played in a new stadium now, Astros fan experience—never stopped me from loving them and although Steve Finley had long since departed, the team in the old days. Maybe I’m the one who’s different. After all, was still recognizable from my Astrodome days in the early spectator sports have certainly loosened their grip on me. ’90s thanks to the continued, reassuring presence of Craig These days, I’d rather sit through a three-hour opera than a Biggio and Jeff Bagwell. As far as I was concerned, the Killer three-hour football game. I’ve even given away most of my B’s were a part of the Astros’ DNA. Like many other fans, I once-prized sports card collection. couldn’t imagine the team without them. I guess we’ll see what happens when—sooner or later—the In 2004 the Astros overcame an anemic offense to make it Astros start winning again. They’re reputed to have the best to the NLCS, where they lost to the Cardinals in seven games. farm team in the league, which is why Sports Illustrated has The following year, my friends and I had standing-room only pegged them to win the World Series—in 2017. My guess is that tickets for Game 4 of the Divisional Series against the Atlanta my interest in the ’Stros will pick back up. I might even go to HOUSTONIA45 Braves, a nearly six-hour slugfest that set the Major League a few games. But will things between us ever be the same? 04 / 2015.